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Firms engaged in new product development (NPD) have to achieve a balanced portfolio of NPD projects. Despite the large number of models purporting to support portfolio optimization, most of them do not take into account political bias in project selection decisions. This paper aims to analyze approaches of organizational politics to NPD project selection and their implications for NPD portfolio management and future research.

A review is made of the current literature at the intersection between organizational politics and NPD project selection. With regard to the underlying assumptions of organizational politics, similarities, differences, practical implications, and research perspectives are identified.

From the paper, insights could be gained into explaining the effects of organizational politics on NPD project selection. However, the differences in assumptions that can be generally observed in organizational politics are also reflected in the studies analyzed. Future research could benefit from integrating different political and methodological perspectives.

In order to reach a balanced NPD portfolio, the potentially dysfunctional biases which characterize political processes from idea generation to project selection should be addressed. A concept of NPD portfolio management is proposed which considers the management of power and politics.

This paper contributes to a more comprehensive overview of political approaches of NPD project selection and serves as a sound basis for future research. The relevance and implications of politics for NPD portfolio management are demonstrated.

This research aims to present and empirically validate a conceptual model for social economy organizations that includes organizational commitment, knowledge‐centered culture, and training as critical variables for the success of formal and informal knowledge management practices.

The research is a cross‐sectional study and involved collection of quantitative data. The sample is made up of Portuguese organizations belonging to the social economy sector. The survey consisted of 205 employees. Path analysis was applied, using maximum‐likelihood estimation procedures.

Path analysis results show that the proposed model has a good fit with the data. Training and knowledge management practices are a function of knowledge‐centered culture and organizational commitment.

The research is focused on social economy organizations, therefore generalization of results to other sectors must be cautious. Although a comprehensible model is presented, it does not cover an exhaustive list of critical factors for knowledge management. Additionally, this research is of a cross‐sectional nature, which does not capture dynamic changes.

The research contributes to the existing literature about the critical factors of knowledge management. Social economy organizations that are developing knowledge management practices should attend to the predominant type of organizational commitment and should base their training policies on a knowledge‐centered culture.

Empirical evidence obtained in this study will be of use not only to social economy organizations wanting to become knowledge management ones, but also to researchers wanting to develop a more comprehensive framework of factors that influence (positively or negatively) knowledge management, specifically within social economy organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether analysts’ personal cognitive traits mitigate the efficacy of graphical impression management.

Three experiments are conducted wherein 525 professional accountants working as financial analysts rate a hypothetical company’s performance graph depicting its net income trend. The manipulation is the presence (absence) of impression management techniques. Hypotheses test whether different techniques are effective and whether analysts’ cognitive reflection ability mitigates manipulation efficacy.

Presentation enhancement is effective only with impulsive analysts, showing the weakness of this technique through the use of colors. Measurement distortion and selectivity techniques are effective for reflective and impulsive analysts; however, reflective analysts are more critical about graphs prepared via selectivity that emphasize profit recovery following crises.

Each impression management technique is investigated in isolation and in controlled conditions. Further research could consider how personal cognitive traits impact the efficacy of combined techniques and whether imbedding manipulated graphs with other information mitigates impression management efficacy.

Research on impression management is mostly “task-oriented;” few “people-oriented” studies focus on decision making by those using financial reports. Users’ cognitive reflection ability is shown to undermine the efficacy of some impression management techniques.

Financial analysts, auditors and regulators could develop mechanisms to avoid pervasive usage of (or enhance skepticism regarding) techniques not mitigated by users’ reflectiveness.

Evidence from financial analysts with an accounting background provides insights on individual characteristics’ influence on graphical impression management efficacy.

A healthy diet has been recognized as one of the most important factors associated with maintaining human health and helping in preventing the development of some chronic diseases. Therefore, this paper aims to study the perceptions of a sample of university people regarding a healthy diet.

It was undertaken a descriptive cross-sectional study on a non-probabilistic sample of 382 participants. The data were collected among a sample of Portuguese university people and measured whether people’s perceptions were compliant with a healthy diet.

The results revealed that the participants’ perceptions were, in general, compliant with a healthy diet (scores between 0.5 and 1.5, on a scale from −2 to +2). However, significant differences were found between age groups (p = 0.004), with a higher average score for young adults, and also between groups with different levels of education (p = 0.025), with a higher score for university degree. The variable chronic diseases also showed significant differences (p = 0.017), so that people who did not have any chronic diseases obtained a higher score.

This study is considered important because it provides evidences about the relation between nutrition knowledge and the perceptions towards a healthy diet. The study allowed concluding that the participants were aware about some nutritional aspects of their diets and, therefore, their perceptions were compliant with a healthy diet. This finding is very relevant because it could be a support for health policy initiatives directed at promoting healthy eating behaviours.

The purpose of this paper is to review the present status and relationship of Macau to Brazil and to a provide the historical context for that relationship.

This paper takes the approach of interviews, an extensive review of Portuguese and English language periodicals of Macau, Brazil, USA extending back to 1950s, and a review of the key secondary literature.

Efforts to promote a relationship between Macau and Brazil since 1961 have been laudable, but have not resulted in either a meaningful economic relationship or systematic cultural links.

Trade-wise Hong Kong is much better positioned to interface with Brazil than Macau. Brazil established strategic trade and diplomatic relations with China 25 years prior to Macau’s return to China in 1999 and without any intermediation by the city.

A strategic plan is needed to develop Macau’s links to Brazil based upon that country’s vast array of cultural strengths, which include sports, music, dance, religion, language, education, cuisine, environment resources, technology and the presence of a significant Macanese Diaspora.

There is a shortage of analysis on the status of the relationship of Brazil to China, Macau and the Lusophone world.

This study to investigate several issues related to food choice and consumption patterns in different countries, including health-related factors; economic and availability aspects; emotional determinants; social, cultural and religious influences; marketing and advertising campaigns; and finally environmental concerns.

The present study was based on a questionnaire that was exclusively prepared for the project, and which was applied to collect data in different countries, in particular Croatia, Egypt, Italy, Greece and Portugal, which are typically associated with the Mediterranean diet (MD).

The results obtained allowed, in general, to conclude that in all five countries the motivations related to health as well as environment and politics were the more relevant to determine people’s eating habits (scores varying from 0.3 to 0.7). Women were more influenced by eating motivations than men, and people with moderate exercise were more susceptible to health and environmental motivations and less to emotional, social or marketing motivations (p < 0.001 in all cases). It was also observed that people who adopted a special diet were more prone to eating motivations and that the emotional motivations were more pronounced in people with eating disorders (p < 0.001). Finally, people without chronic diseases or allergies were even more influenced by health motivations than those who actually suffered from these health problems (p < 0.001 in both cases).

This work is important because of the multinational coverage, thus allowing to evaluate the most relevant factors that influenced the food choices of the populations around the Mediterranean Sea, sharing the common link to the MD. The study allowed concluding that, in general, the food choices were primarily determined by health factors and also by concerns related to the environment and sustainability as well as by political influences.

The purpose of this is to explore the potential of the combined use of the viable system model (VSM) and social network analysis (SNA) to identify organizational pathologies.

Using a well-documented case study based on an academic consultancy intervention and Action Research Project, participative methods for the diagnostic of the VSM and questionnaires for the collection of connectivity data for the SNA were used to develop a heuristic to integrate these two tools and identify organizational pathologies.

This study provides empirical evidence of the benefits of the combined use of SNA to enhance the identification of organizational pathologies in VSM interventions, by providing an additional qualitative and quantitative framework for the interpretation of findings coming from VSM organizational diagnostics.

This work explores some analytic routines of SNA frequently used in management. The validation is constrained to the nature of the data set from a case study. The document invites to a discussion of further and more advanced applications on the integration of the VSM and SNA.

The enhanced identification of organizational pathologies can contribute to the emerging new interest in applications of the VSM in management, providing robustness to the structural analysis of organizations.

This paper proposes a guideline to exploit the potential of the combined use of SNA and VSM. It opens new avenues for the study of organizational pathologies.

The purpose of this paper is to perform the limiting performance analysis of a vehicle restraint system (seat belt) in order to find the optimal control force, and its pre-acting time that minimizes the risk of injury.

A discrete model of the human thorax is used. A multiobjective optimum design problem is formulated in order to minimize the risk of injuries in case of impact. Several injury criteria are minimized and are required to remain below a safety threshold value.

The authors found which of the objectives are contradictory and which are not. Several of the optimal sets of design variables are analyzed and their performance compared to one another. The results are also compared to the case of not taking in account the pre-acting time. As expected, the results in this case are worse.

As with all limiting performance analysis, the technological implementation restraints of the control force are not taken into account. As such, the solutions must be considered a benchmark to which the actual solution can be compared to.

The limiting performance analysis concept allows us to have a theoretical benchmark to which the real control performance can be compared to.

As far as the authors know, the pre-acting time, and its implications on the improvement of the performance of the control system, is an original contribution to the problem the authors tried to solve.

This paper proposes a maturity model (MM) for assessing disaster operations and identifying strategies for organisations to evolve their maturity stages.

This study applies a systematic literature review to identify state-of-the-art work related to maturity models for disaster operations. In addition, the study develops a case study to validate the proposed maturity model in a generic scenario and two real-life scenarios.

The analysis of 158 papers in the literature resulted in identifying 8 maturity models for disaster operations. Based on their structure, the authors proposed a new model with five maturity stages suitable for any of the four phases of the disaster life cycle (i.e. mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery). In addition, the research identified and presents 24 strategies for improving disaster operations according to each maturity stage transition. Finally, the research presents a case study that evaluates the disaster response operations from a Civil Defense organisation considering a response scenario disaster in general, a flood scenario, and the COVID-19 pandemic scenario.

This study provides the following three main contributions useful for academics and practitioners in the disaster operations area: a new maturity model for assessing disaster operations, a strategy guide for improving disaster operations based on a maturity evolution and an empirical study exploring the approximation between academia and professionals involved in real-life disaster operations management.

This paper aims to identify and characterize the motivations for ISO 9001 quality management system (QMS) implementation and certification, with a novel, valid and business-oriented scale applied to a large sample. Instead of adopting a normative approach focusing on the internal/external nature of the motivation, this investigation aims to emphasize the ISO 9001 driving forces from an instrumental (productivity, market and competitiveness) perspective.

This study is framed with a quantitative methodology supported by an email survey encompassing a sample of 526 Portuguese ISO 9001 certified organizations. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factorial analysis (EFA), t-tests and correlation analysis were performed according to the proposed research questions.

Regarding the motivations, three factors were obtained by applying EFA: market, productivity and competitiveness. The respondent organizations consider the productivity factor (mainly related to internal motivations) to be the most important. Concerning the other factors, competitiveness in the sector is ranked second and the reasons related to the market come in third. Additionally, organizations of medium dimension (between 50 and 249 employees), certified up to 1999 or from the private sector, give greater relevance to motivations related to the market and competitiveness.

This investigation suffers from the limitations inherent to the survey methodology (e.g. potential bias) and a Portuguese sample’s restrictions. Moreover, this research does not cover organizations that have been certified after 2015, namely, with an initial ISO 9001:2015 certification. Nevertheless, most of the respondents’ organizations remain ISO 9001 certified today.

The information provided allows managers to know the driving forces and motivations behind seeking ISO 9001 certification. It can assist certification bodies in fine-tuning their marketing strategies to attract new customers and support ISO 9001 stakeholders in the ISO 9001 revision cycles.

Policymakers can also adjust policies to foster ISO 9001 certification accordingly. Furthermore, as Wawak et al. (2020) suggested, with ISO starting a new revision cycle for ISO 9001, an increase in the research topic is expected. This study brings additional knowledge that can assist ISO stakeholders in that process.

This study presents a novel, valid and more business-oriented scale to characterize and identify the motivations for ISO 9001 QMS certification and maps the driving forces for ISO 9001 certification in a large sample size of diverse organizations. The instrumental nature of the scale (productivity, market and competitiveness) improves the consistency with recent research on ISO 9001 contributions for organizational performance compared with previous scales that focused on the internal/external nature of the motivation.